Honey Street, Saturday 26 April

We had a pleasant walk round the village yesterday evening after the rain cleared up. A high percentage of the properties are thatched and quite old. We had yet more rain over night giving a total of 14.5mm in 24 hrs.

This morning started bright but has been very mixed, we set of at 10 in light drizzle but within 20 minutes we had not only had light rain, but heavy rain and even a bit of hail as well as some sun. 

All the boats we met today were wide beam, some of them hire boats from Moonraker canal Boats at Honey Street.

There are several disused locks along this stretch all that we have seen have been under bridges, others may have been removed completely of course.

There was a small collection of boat moored at Pewsey Wharf but the ones on the water point were taking water, one think I have noticed is that quite often there are not dedicated water point moorings and the tap is just on the visitor moorings, like at Honey St. and Wootton Rivers.

Bowden’s Bridge is a rather rickety looking suspension bridge crossing the canal near Wilcot, but it is only a foot bridge and I don’t think there is any public access. I couldn’t quite make out the manufacturers name.

There was quite a nice show of Bluebells on the offside where this bridge lands and I expect that the woods are left quite undisturbed. This is part of the Stowell estate and its due to its owners the Wroughtons that Wide water  and Lady’s Bridge were constructed, as when the canal was proposed to pass through their estate they objected and demanded a “Lilly Pond and stone bridge plus a cash settlement for it to go ahead.

It was on Wide Water where a Cob Swan objected to a pair of Canada Geese trying to set up home and he pointed out to them quite forcefully that they should find somewhere else to live, unfortunately the pore old Heron who was minding his own business got caught up in the skirmish. It wasn’t far from here where we planned to more for the night right outside The Barge Inn at Honey Street. As many of you will know this pub is a famous meeting place for people investigating “Crop Circles”, but before we reached there we had a stunning view of the “White Horse” on the hill side.

We arrived at the moorings to find enough room for about three Narrowboats at 1 o’clock and it wasn’t a moment to soon as it was soon raining hard again with the wind gusting at 30 mph.

Today’s Map